


Inauguration

by orphan_account



Series: Human Instrumentality Project [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Post-Canon, Secret Relationship, Self-Indulgent, THIS PROMPT KILLS THE MAN BUT I SHOEHORNED IT IN SCREW YOU GUYS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1335253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the reception on the eve of the new Führer's inauguration, Riza Hawkeye fears that her secret lover is about to drop the ball.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inauguration

**Author's Note:**

> Written for FMA Week 2014. Prompt 11-B: "Taboo". Written for my new tongue-in-cheek named series _Human Instrumentality Project_. Prompt "Attributes B - socially independent versus socially dependent".
> 
> I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANY CATALINA/ROSS IN FOREVER. That's next on my list. Oh boy.
> 
> Unbeta'd/unedited/etc. Enjoy!

At the banquet celebrating the inauguration of the esteemed new Führer, the decorated former Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong-cum-Führer and Commander-in-Chief of the Amestrisian Army Olivier Mira Armstrong, none of the candidates save for one deigned to offer words of advice or approval to the new leader of the nation. Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist—the other hopeful who ultimately received just seven percent short of the vote, and whose popularity prompted certain cynics to remark that this election would indicate less which candidate was best for the country so much as whether the voters would prove more racist or more sexist—took the stage.

With his hair slicked back and his dark formal attire broken solely by the white of his scarf, he appeared better prepared to attend a funeral, as Armstrong whispered under her breath at the banquet table below the stage. Lieutenant Colonel Miles, hair freshly cut in the Ishvalan manner and beard and sideburns recently shaved to adhere to Amestrisian social tradition, concealed his smirk behind a glass of wine. Without altering her expression but for a faint tightening of the jaw, Captain Hawkeye, seated on Armstrong’s left side, sat up slightly while Mustang went on.

“No matter our previous disagreements—and trust me when I say we’d had _plenty_ —” That elicited a chuckle from the audience, mostly from elderly men who nudged one another or made snide comments about their experiences with Armstrong. “—I know that you will serve Amestris with the entirety of your heart and soul. Make sure to leave some of it for yourself as well.” He lifted the wine flute cradled between his middle and ring fingers. “Thank you, and may Amestris prosper.”

The assembled applauded. Glasses clinked at his half-speech, half-toast. As he returned to sit by Hawkeye’s side, she inclined her chin encouragingly. “Well said, sir.”

He waggled his eyebrows, poured himself a general second helping of liquor. “Thank you, Captain.”

The retired Führer thanked Mustang for his comments. As he replaced the microphone, Armstrong made to stand; sensing the upwards motion from the corner of her vision, Hawkeye laid her hand, gloved from fingers to upper arm in the same violet material of her dress, on Armstrong’s sleeve, the sheer blue of the Führer uniform. “Remember what I mentioned,” she hissed, her timbre level, her speed uncharacteristically urgent.

Armstrong arched an eyebrow. “As I’ve already promised you,” she answered with a voice _just_ adequately loud for Hawkeye’s heart to crawl out of her chest and beat somewhere in her throat, “you have nothing to worry about. I have no plans to embarrass you.”

Somehow the assurance left the bitter taste of—not quite _fear_ , but certainly some form or other of worry—on her tongue. Still Hawkeye nodded, allowed her hand to slip back to her lap, while Armstrong strode down the walkway to the stage.

Her movements, the high tilt of her head, the power evident in the draw of fabric over her shoulders, her arms, her thighs: Hawkeye’s breath, stolen from her lungs. Yet she forced her gaze away, focused her sight—like a camera lens—onto the silver cutlery on her plate.

Beneath the appropriately dimmed lights and the massive banner welcoming the new leader of Amestris, journalists for _The Central City Chronicle_ , for _The Amestrisian Times_ , for the myriad of smaller newspapers, magazines, and tabloids that managed to bribe their way into the inauguration reception scribbled furiously. Armstrong cleared her throat. The microphone spiked in staticky feedback; Hawkeye winced.

Miles frowned. “Are you all right, Hawkeye?”

“Perfectly fine.” Not entirely: after her time in Briggs, she’d steadily come to recall the vitality of hierarchy, of immediate chains of action and order, of discarding one’s individual humanity in favour of the rapid response time and instantaneous information channels necessary for large-scale combat, such as the defence of the entire northern outpost of the nation.

Like Ishval, in other words. What she’d long associated with the darkest period of her life. The nadir, the valley of ash, the final moments before the revelation.

But that had become merely a manner of readjusting her worldview to fit the context. Admitting that, no, what she had grown to label _Ishval_ in her mind existed solely when she summed up the parts of the whole. The solitary aspects did not a genocide make.

Armstrong had taught her that.

Yet Armstrong, yet her _lover_ , yet the woman who so carefully delineated between her life as icy, passionate the General of Briggs and the reckless, open woman who shared Hawkeye’s heart, had never thought of the disparity between private life and public convention. Of the position of Führer. Hawkeye wondered: _Would_ she become the Ice Queen of Amestris, or would she warm in the milder climes of Central?

At least for this banquet, Hawkeye desperately banked upon the former.

Her speech commenced sufficiently innocently: Armstrong mentioned her previous experience as a colonel prior to the Ishvalan War of Extermination, her subsequent transfer to the struggling fort of Briggs—considered by the senior staff a manner of shutting out a woman with both the ambition to take the Führership and the skill to back her bark with an even more vicious bite—her complete upheaval of the organisational structure of Briggs, her victory over the Drachman forces and the consequent expansion of Amestris’s territory. She regarded the recent developments with the surrounding nations formerly caught up in conflict, the importance of Ishval retaining its sovereignty and autonomy even as its people continued to ally with the overarching government of Amestris, the welcome presence of the Xingese and other eastern neighbours to the fore of Amestrisian trade and politics. She described her vision of a future for the nation, democratic, thrust in the hands of the people, with a military expunged of dead wood and tightly focused inwards on defence and assistance _to_ the people rather than extermination or outwards conflict. People, she stressed, that included not only the Ishvalans, but other slightest groups: minorities, women, and so on.

As her words wound down, she angled the microphone towards her mouth and raised her shoulders. “And ultimately, I want you all to remember that one’s roots do not dictate one’s fruit. Yes, Amestris was founded by a devil-on-Earth bent on destroying the world to make itself immortal. But.” Armstrong paused. Hawkeye could almost taste the electric chill charging the air, caught herself leaning forward along with the rest of the audience.

Armstrong slammed her fist into the podium.

“But this country was built up from the ground by _humanity_. By women and men. By you and me.” Unable to shift her gaze from the most incredible woman in the universe, Hawkeye nonetheless observed Miles smiling behind the rim of his glass.

“And now that we’ve cleared the air in the attic, swept the skeletons from the closets and taken out the secrets with the trash, we can continue the tradition of men and women building a country. A country that _doesn’t_ flaunt some pretentious monarchy or idiotic oligarchy. Nah. This is _Amestris_ , and from the very beginning, it’s been about the people, _for_ the people.” She stepped back. Saluted. “I, Olivier Mira Armstrong, swear upon my honour and my life to defend, protect, and serve this country and its people until my dying breath, or until this country and its people believe me unfit to represent them. I would sooner step down or die than disappoint the greatest nation upon the face of the Earth. Thank you, and enjoy the reception.”

The electric buzz shattered into thunder and lightning. The senior staff, the journalists, the assembled military and political leaders of the country, the delegates from the countries with which Amestris had arranged a fragile form of peace: _applause_. The diplomat to Xing and his delegate wife stood first, clapping wildly. Then the standing ovation rippled outwards in twin waves of scraping chairs and slapping palms. Tears wetting the corners of her eyes, Hawkeye sprang to her feet.

Armstrong bowed at the shoulders. The applause grew. As if sensing the exact tipping point—the exact _instant_ of the ovation’s zenith—the Führer lifted a hand. Less than a second later the noise ceased. Someone set down a wine flute on the other end of the table and Hawkeye heard the ice tinkle.

Still she beamed up at the woman on the stage. The speech, undoubtedly recorded carefully by journalists whose hands had somehow yet to catch fire, would ride the headlines with the morning papers and carry on with analyses to the evening editions and beyond. The world would know of the Führer’s experience, of the Führer’s intentions, of the Führer’s right to rule.

Then Armstrong smiled—not her entire mouth; the corners of her lips scarcely twitched, but Hawkeye could read the laugh lines at her eyes more easily than a field report from the meticulous Maria Ross—and Hawkeye, very distinctly, felt her stomach drop below her feet, crash through the floorboards, and burrow straight to the core of the Earth.

“I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the people who made this possible. First, those who have gone before us, thank you for your blood, sweat, and tears.” Armstrong lowered her eyelids. Sobered, Hawkeye mentally chastised herself for her concern. “Lieutenant Colonel Miles, thank you for babysitting me all of these years—” The audience chuckled. “—and for giving your all to Ishval.” He nodded; Hawkeye elbowed him surreptitiously for the wet gleam in his eyes. “General Peizhi Huo, thank you for dedicating your life to the ice as I had all those years ago.” Raising herself from the chair to identify herself, the stocky Xingese woman in the blue dress saluted. “Captain Hawkeye, thank you for staying by my side since I met you.” Hawkeye sensed the droplets of sweat beading her brow. But she could not deny the love of her life her happiness. Though from her position she couldn’t make out the exact hue of her lover’s eyes, she knew the striking blue. Knew the glint deep in those cornflower irises. Knew the tension in the coiled muscles of the feet that ground into the floor, in the tendons of the hands that gripped the microphone, in the faint tremble of the throat that threatened to rip through Hawkeye’s entire body.

Armstrong’s mouth quirked upwards. Visibly. “Captain Hawkeye, on the eve of this _great_ celebration—one of the most special nights of my life—could you come up here.”

Not a question. Never a question. Armstrong knew her answer just as much as Hawkeye knew her lover.

With a good-natured sneer, Mustang clapped her on the back. Miles indicated the stage. The rest of Mustang’s team, sitting a bit away, flashed her various gestures of affirmation: She shifted her glance from Fuery’s grin to Catalina’s thumbs-up.

Damn Catalina. She and Ross had successfully kept their relationship under wraps for the past _half a decade_ or more. Somehow.

The weight of hundred gazes bore down upon Hawkeye while she walked towards the stage. Normally she had little trouble with the shorter high heels she wore, but now she sensed herself nearly stumbling every second or two. She found the steps. Climbed. Crossed the stage with the floodlight threatening to burn off her skin. Or perhaps merely her cheeks burned.

She could never tell.

“Captain Hawkeye.”

Hawkeye snapped to a perfect salute. Heels together, elbow bent precisely, fingers rigid. “Sir.”

“Captain Hawkeye. Before the nation of Amestris and its great people, I would like to ask you something.” Hawkeye’s eyes widened; her throat constricted; her vision blurred around the edges, the shadows thickening and the lights swaying. Armstrong lowered herself to a knee. As though observing the scene from a distant window Hawkeye listened to the sharp inhalations of the audience.

The black box rested perfectly in the scarred bottom of the Führer’s palm. When she looked up— _below_ Hawkeye—offering up all of herself to Hawkeye—granting Hawkeye the whole of the strength and the power and the force upon this world—her eyes glinted the exact shade of cornflower blue that Hawkeye had predicted.

Hawkeye could walk barefoot into the sea and still find herself drowning in those irises.

The room vanished. The delegates, the politicians, the generals and colonels and the rest of the bastards with the golden braids on their blue—not _Armstrong_ blue, but a false blue, a dim blue she could not stand—and the stars on their lapels, fell away.

Riza Hawkeye. Olivier Mira Armstrong.

In the instant before Armstrong dropped the words, each one like a boulder heavy and massive and _consequential_ , stepping-stones in the halfway melted river between them, Hawkeye was forming her answer in the lips she tried desperately not to curve into a half-moon smile. She curled her tongue forward, touched the tip to the back of her lower teeth, felt the play of her breath exhaled from her throat and into her mouth.

“Will you marry me?”

“ _Yes_.” Knees on the floor. “Yes.” Hands around her lover’s wrists. “A thousand times yes.” Tears in her eyes.

Armstrong slipped on the ring—glittery, diamond, studded with a base of sapphire set into a ring as gold as her hair—and the weight of the loop startled her, suddenly, abruptly, like she were unable to keep arm, her hand, her ring finger in the air.

Instead she rested her hands on Armstrong’s shoulders. Slid them up her neck, her throat. Cradling Armstrong’s jaw in her palms, Hawkeye leaned forward.

Her heart thudded out her words: _You may kiss the fiancée._

In another second she would hear the combination of frantic cheering and accursed screaming of the crowd. In another second Hawkeye would care about the implications, about her photograph snapped and passed around in the newspaper, about the rabid diehards arguing whether a marriage between two women could be legal. Oh, no _law_ existed specifically, they would scream, but one followed the _spirit_ of the law, not the _letter_. In another second she would dash from the stage, tumble over her heels, crumple to the floor. In another second she would be trapped between the lover—the fiancée—the _wife_ she so desperately loved and the inevitable ostracization from society that would follow.

Perhaps not. Perhaps in another second she would simply prolong the kiss, would gather Armstrong in her arms, would lift her like a bride and carry her down towards the banquet table to truly begin the celebration of one of the most special nights in their lives.

She neither knew nor cared. For now, she had the love of her life.

And that was enough. And that was enough.


End file.
